NEW SOUTH WALES. 
209 
bottom, and a ftrong current letting through very 
rapidly. Many cocoa-palms were feen on the iliore, and 
excited an earneft expectation of procuring effectual re- 
frefliment for the fick : a boat from each of the fliips was 
therefore manned and fent out. While the boats were 
founding a-head, many Indians approached in their canoes, 
and by figns invited our people to fliore, giving them to 
underftand that they might be fupplied with cocoa nuts 
and many other things ; but when they attempted to 
land at a place which had the appearance of a Morai or 
burying-place, they would not fuffer it, inlifting that 
they fhouid proceed further one way or the other. In the 
mean time many perfons of both fexes fwam off from 
Ihore, holding up bamboos * full of water, which they 
imagined the iliips to want. Mr. Sinclair, the Mafter of 
the Alexander, being in the boat, brought the following 
account of this expedition. " Finding I could not make 
them underftand that I wanted cocoa-nuts^ and not water, 
I was refolved to land, and therefore put on fliore as fooii 
as I found a convenient place, amidft a concourfe of 
between three and four hundred people. I immediately 
fixed upon an old man, (whom, from an ornament of 
bone upon his arm, I concluded to be a chief) and made 
him a prefent of fome nails and beads, which were 
accepted with evident pleafure^ and immediately conci- 
* Bamboos were the only water vefTels in tlie Pelew Iflands. See TFilfon^ chap. 
XXV. p. 312. 
E e 
liated 
